The Rogue's Surrender (The Nelson's Tea Series Book 3) Read Free Page B

and smacked its hindquarters.
    The team sprinted at a run, startling the bored driver, who labored in vain to regain control as the wagon rounded a bend in the road.
    Garrick raised his sword and motioned to Max and Randall, who then motioned to their men. One by one, the group moved toward the pier’s edge, sinking soundlessly into the water to scale the ship on the starboard side.
    Time passed slowly as Garrick, Rigby, Moore, and twenty of his men waited until they were confident his water bound crew had climbed the hull and were in position.
    Keane sounded off the seconds. “Four — three — two — one.”
    Now.
    Garrick waved his palm across his chest. As one, they crept forward, stealth-footed and sure, easily dispatching sentries on the port side of the gangplank. One by one, La Mota’s ill-fated and sluggish crew was dispatched, bound, and gagged before being shuffled off the deck and to a port-of-call building in Don Vasquez’s surplus of warehouses.
    When all aboard had been accounted for, Moore and his men wasted no time removing the wooden gangplank and plunking it overboard. The wooden beam plummeted with a quiet splash as the crew unfurled the sails and others hacked the moorings clean away.
    Listing slightly, the Priory bobbed, groaning as the turbulent bay currents pulled it free of the pier. No one spoke. Silence reigned. No general alarm sounded to mar their escape. In the distance, Santa Clara Island and the guns of La Mota Castle gleamed impotently down on them in the moonlight.
    Garrick stood at the helm, the Priory ’s wheel justly back in his hands. He held his breath, feet planted securely beneath him, happy to put as much distance between him and San Sebastian as possible. If he ever dealt with anything or anyone remotely Spanish again, it would be too soon.

TWO
    “You should not be here.”
    Señorita Mercedes Catalina Vasquez Claremont blinked her eyelashes like over-exaggerated butterfly’s wings. She inhaled deeply, refusing to take offense to her brother’s callous greeting. As usual, whenever she boarded his ship, he immediately wanted her to turn on her heels and step back on shore. She wouldn’t — couldn’t — do it. Not this time. Not when so much was at stake. Not when she might never see her younger brother again.
    She feigned a hearty laugh. What good did it do for Eddie to witness the pain his indifference inflicted? She’d come to see him off before he sailed. Nothing could convince her otherwise. With Napoleon in charge of waging war against “a nation of shopkeepers” as he called the English, heaven knew when she’d see Eddie again. Though major sea battles with the English navy had ended at Trafalgar, Napoleon’s brother, Joseph, had just been crowned King of Naples, and Napoleon now set his sights on Prussia, leaving Spain floundering on unstable ground.
    In light of her dangerous decision to venture aboard Eddie’s ship in the dead of night, was it any wonder her brother didn’t greet her more affectionately? Just the same, she fretted he would never accept her stronger-willed nature.
    “You mustn’t scold me for coming to see you off, Eddie.”
    “Eduardo.” He frowned and straightened his spine. “You know how much I abhor the name Eddie.”
    Capitán Eduardo Philippe Vasquez had been Eddie to Mercy and their English-born mother, formerly Lady Lydia Claremont, since infancy. Was she to stop loving him as well? Or was it her stubborn nature, her womanhood, he objected to. He rarely credited her intelligence. For the life of her, she couldn’t fathom why. Weren’t women just as proficient as men?
    “I prefer to be called Mercy. And yet you insist on calling me Mercedes. What does that say about us, eh?”
    He stared at her, adorably one of the most handsome Spaniards she’d ever seen, their father’s twin in many ways but one. “Why are you here?”
    Why else? Did he expect that she’d allow him to deploy his ship without a fond fare-thee-well?